


coming home

by rexflame



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Family Fluff, I'm Bad At Tagging, Other, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, i'm here for the Good Trans Content (tm), the trans journey, trans girl mist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 21:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4935352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexflame/pseuds/rexflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>growing into who she is takes time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	coming home

**Author's Note:**

> THIS SEEMS LIKE...a lot of cliche trans tropes? if that makes sense at all..but it's based somewhat off my own transmasculine experiences so i think it's alright! not beta'd, of course, and written in one sitting. error filled hell.  
> also, i can't write ANY of these characters.

“Ike,” Mist declares sternly on his thirteenth birthday.

“I want to grow my hair out.”

“Like Soren?” Ike asks, blowing his hair out of his eyes as he pokes at a piece of Mist’s birthday cake.

“Sort of,” he replies, and Soren gives them both a glare. Ike misses the look, too busy stabbing at his slice of cake, and only looks up to offer Mist a shrug.

“If dad will let you, I don’t care.”

Mist’s face brightens into a smile at that, and he dives into his slice of cake with renewed vigor.

___________________________

Mist has more than just family friends over for his fourteenth birthday.

A girl he’d met at school, some foreign transfer by the name of Jill. Soren doesn’t seem to trust her and keeps shooting her glares (but then again, when does Soren seem to trust anyone?) He squeezes Ike’s hand the entire time and Mist pretends he doesn’t notice.

In the past year, Mist’s hair has grown long, and hangs just to the middle of his back. He likes it like that, and Rhys says it fits him - he ruffles it and makes it stand on end, and that makes Mist squeak, but the compliment makes him happy. Jill has put his hair into a braid for today, and he likes it all the more that way; Titania offers to teach him to do his hair like that, and he accepts the offer with a smile before bounding off to find where Jill had gotten off to.

She’s sitting at the top of their playscape, legs dangling precariously off the edge of the rock wall (it used to be where Soren would sit, Mist remembers, whenever he was thinking.) 

“Jill!” Mist says with a grin and a wave, running for the rock wall. Jill shifts over to the side with a slightly amused smile, and Mist squeezes in beside her. The close proximity doesn’t bother him like he thinks it should.

They stay there like that, just sitting, and the silence is not as awkward as it seems it should be Jill folds one of her legs beneath herself, and Mist moves slightly to accommodate her. 

“Is your brother..is he gay?” Jill asks, an odd question to break the silence.

“I don’t know,” Mist admits, “but does that really matter?”

“It shouldn’t,” he adds, slightly defensively. 

“It.. does not,” she replies softly after a few moments.

“Back home, though..it isn’t common.”

Mist shrugs.

“Well, it doesn’t matter what’s common. I mean, Ike’s happy, and so’s Soren! ..I think. Soren’s always grouchy.”

They both laugh at that one, and the conversation is cut short by Rhys calling them down for Mist to open presents.  
___________________________

Mist borrows one of Jill’s skirts on his fifteenth birthday.

He’s sleeping over Jill’s house, something which he’s surprised was allowed - but they have a spare room for Mist to sleep in. It’s odd, the lack of Titania and Rhys and Boyd and of course the lack of Ike and Soren and his father.

They’re hanging out in Jill’s room, Mist and her, joking and laughing and maybe gossiping the slightest bit, when the doorbell rings and Jill heads down to answer it with a mumbled apology for the interruption.

Mist can’t deny, then, that he’s curious, alone in Jill’s room. He has the decency to not poke through anything obviously private, but something possesses him to open the closet. He’s surprised to find skirts; he doesn’t think he’s once seen Jill in anything that’s not pants. One of the skirts doesn’t look like it would match Jill at all, an off-white color article that falls to just above one’s knees.

He can still hear Jill speaking with whoever’s at the door, and in a moment of impulse he pulls it down off the hanger it’s on and slips it over his shorts. The hems of them just show under the skirt, but he doesn’t particularly mind - it’s for fun, right? He does a quick spin, his loose hair billows behind him, and a small laugh escapes his lips.

Jill stands in the door of the room.

“W-when did you get back?” Mist says, a nervous laugh coming off his lips, equally embarrassed and afraid.

“Just a moment ago,” she replies, not crossing the threshold.

“The skirt..”

Mist braces himself for the worst.

“It looks good on you.”

He beams, and she tilts her head, looking up and down him appraisingly.

“If you want it, you can keep it. I rarely wear skirts, and I have plenty of others.”

And then Jill goes off about rummaging through her closet, and why was he in there, but Mist is busy happily clenching at the hem of his skirt.  
___________________________

In a burst of bravery, Mist decides to wear his skirt on the first day of tenth grade.

A pair of black leggings (also Jill’s), his new favorite article of clothing, and an orange sweatshirt he’s had since he can remember and is just finally starting to grow out of. He spins in the mirror, once, twice, and realizes his hair is a limp tangled mess.

He spends a good half hour after that, staring into the bathroom mirror, trying to braid his hair just right, and gives up with a frustrated sigh. In the end, he ties off the hair on the sides of his face and feels oddly pleased with himself.

“You look cute, Mist,” Ike comments blearily, looking like he’d just woken up about five minutes ago.

“When’d you get the skirt?”

“Jill gave it to me!” 

He’s surprised Ike doesn’t say something about that - a boy in a skirt, who’s ever heard of that? But Ike has always been perfectly indifferent to these sorts of things, letting people make their own choices, and Mist loves his brother for that.

“We need to leave in ten minutes,” Soren grumbles from upstairs. 

“I’m leaving now!” Mist shouts back as Soren stumbles through the entrance to the kitchen, looking tired but at least less disheveled than Ike.

“Be careful,” he says, which is probably the nicest thing Mist has ever heard Soren say to someone who’s not Ike.

___________________________

“Jill,” Mist says with apprehension on his sixteenth birthday.

“I -”

“You’re gay,” Jill cuts him off.

“That’s it, right?”

“Not quite,” he responds with a weak smile, tugging at the frayed hem of his sweatshirt. It’s too small for him now.

“I… I’m a girl, Jill. Pleasedon’thateme.”

Jill’s gaze goes wide for a moment. Mist giggles nervously, twisting a string from her sweatshirt around her finger. Then Jill’s gaze softens.

“You’re still Mist.”

“Y..yeah?” she offers with a weak grin.

“Just, y’know, a girl.”

“Haven’t you always been a girl? You’re not any different.”

Mist lets out a relieved sigh then, and Jill gives her one of her small Jill-smiles. Of course Jill would be pragmatic about this. Of course it would be Jill. 

“Can I tell you something, too?” Jill asks finally.

“Sure!” she chirps in reply, a bit too fast. 

“I think..” Jill twirls her ponytail around her finger, and the pink dusting her cheeks makes her freckles pop.

“I like you. Like you.”

It’s Mist’s turn to look surprised, and Jill’s turn to look away. But then Mist grins, steps forward, and reaches out for Jill’s hand. The mixture of happiness and surprise on Jill’s face makes Mist’s smile wider.

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that!”

Jill squeezes Mist’s hand. Mist squeezes Jill’s hand, but hesitates after a moment.

“Are you okay with this? Since.. I’m a girl.”

“I thought we discussed this when we were fourteen.”

Mist remembers a conversation on a swingset, about Ike and Soren, about whether or not boys can be with boys and girls can be with girls. And if it was possible for her to smile harder, she would have.

___________________________

Titania does her nails for her seventeenth birthday.

She was surprised when no one had rejected her, called her a freak, or maybe a sinner, but she supposed she had gotten lucky to have such a loving family. Outside of home was not quite as welcoming, anyway. 

“Mist!” Rhys exclaims, bursting into the room while Titania is halfway through Mist’s right hand.

“This better be important,” Titania says with a joking lilt to her voice.

“Oh, trust me, it is.”

He holds out a dress in front of him, orange and cream, accentuated in just the right ways to add curves where Mist had none. 

“It’s from Jill and me,” Rhys says with a smile and a small wink that says more than words ever could. He leaves the garment across Mist’s bed, and Mist smiles at him.

“Thank you.”

When she changes into the dress, she feels the prettiest she ever has; hairties from Soren, a dress from Jill and Rhys, nails done perfectly by Titania, and a necklace that Ike had given her earlier in the year with a comment about how he didn’t really know what girls liked. 

She has never felt more at home.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M PRETTY SURE THE FORMATTING GOT TOTALLY FUCKED but i hoped u enjoyed my Trans Content (tm) (i know being trans is not nearly as happy as this fic makes it out to be but i really wanted to write something nice about trans girl mist and not something sad)


End file.
